Textile products run the gamut from clothing, to containers (such as bags and baskets), to household products (such as carpeting, upholstered furnishings, window shades, towels, coverings for tables, beds, and other flat surfaces). Textiles are used in products such as filtering, flags, backpacks, tents, nets, handkerchiefs, and cleaning rags. Even products such as balloons, kites, sails, and parachutes are made with textiles. Textiles can be used to provide strengthening in composite materials such as fiberglass. Textiles are used in many traditional crafts such as sewing, quilting, and embroidery. Technical textiles include textile products for automotive applications, medical textile products (e.g. implants), geotextile products (reinforcement of embankments), agro-textiles (textiles for crop protection), protective clothing (for example, against heat and radiation for fire fighter clothing, against molten metals for welders, stab protection, and bullet proof vests).
Standards, such as ASTM D6673-10 “Standard Practice for Sewn Products Pattern Data Interchange-Data Format,” exist to facilitate two-dimensional, sewn pattern piece data exchange between computer-aided design (CAD) systems at the level of pattern design. ASTM D6673-10 also facilitates grade rule table (used to create dimensions for various sizes of the same pattern) data exchange for sewn products in the apparel industry. ASTM D6673-10 uses the “DXF” file format for pattern piece data exchange, and a specially formatted ASCII file format for grade rule tables. It is limited to the transfer of pattern pieces within a style and the associated pattern piece and style information. It does not support the transfer of numerical cutter instructions, plotter instructions, complete marker-laying or spreading information, or product data specification information.